EMTECH – Gdium Mobile Netbook

There’s a new mobile netbook in town and this one has a little bit of an additional component up it’s tiny sleeves to make it even that much more interesting. The Gdium Netbook from EMTEC has everything you’d except from the smaller form factor with some additional features that may make it even more appealing to other uses.

Gdium Netbooks from EMTEC

The Gdium has the smaller form factor, light-weight and a 10″ screen that displays 1024×600 resolution. It’s also completely based on open source software. What makes the Gdium unique though is that it also comes with the G-key to allow users to travel in more lightly with all of their information in tact.

Unique to the Gdium is the G-Key, a bootable USB key on which the Linux operating system, applications and personal data are stored. The G-Key allows each user to store their personal information and preferences securely, without leaving a trace on the computer.

I like this idea, but I’ll be honest I’m still not sure if the ultra-light, super-portable computer is something really for me. I don’t travel a lot anymore, and when I do it’s usually just to be onsite with clients. The work I’m doing onsite is development work and web site and application design. I need a full-size screen, I usually carry around a 2nd monitor (which I’d like to replace with this), a portable 320GB hard drive, and my Logitech VX Nano notebook mouse. Travelling light really isn’t a big deal for me.

My other challenge is keeping things synchronized. I’m too the point now where I do just about everything on my single laptop and have forgotten about trying to synchronize anything with my personal desktop or sometimes even the server at the office. The G-key is interesting solution though. I could work on my computer as normal, but if I ever needed to travel without it, I could pull the key and boot-up on another machine with no problems and feel like I was working on “my” machine.

What do you think?